Do you ever wonder why we only have 12 notes in a scale?  I did.  When I was 14 I was given my first 6 piano students.  Soon after, I made the decision that I wanted a career in music and auditioned for a renowned teacher, Tom LaRatta, that would lead me to a university scholarship where he taught.  He blew my mind dissecting Bach's "Well Tempered Clavier"....  

Yes it's true.  Twenty years ago, we thought it was a great idea.  It sounded fantastic, too.  So what happened?

2022 turned out to be rougher than I thought!  Here's our list of predictions from last year and our comments a year later!

Working in a studio full time is one of the hardest jobs on one's health that you can imagine.  Ten to 12 hours of concentrated work with few breaks and every day with a new artist can mean exercise and reasonable food choices get thrown out the window.  

A few days ago Paul McGowan from PS Audio described his first listening experience and it reminded me of mine.  What was your first listening experience?

I was so very lucky to call Don Lewis a friend, even though we only met a few years before the pandemic... and more lucky to have been able to work with him on what became his last album, Amazing Voyage. This pioneer of synthesizers was also a historian and created an album of music that tells the history of "Amazing Grace" - a classic gospel song that we all know and love.

Wendy Tahara is an incredibly gifted harpist.  She's played her meditative style for thousands of people at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.  We're happy to announce her solo harp album - When the Harp Sings - will be distributed worldwide on all streaming services and more importantly in DSD 256 at Blue Coast Music starting Friday.

Recording sound and product creation for consumers isn't a subject that you can cover in a Twitter tweet or Instagram post.  The forums got too unwieldy for me to spend a lot of time on.  But after the recent revelations of mastering processes brought havoc to the audiophile world, I decided to take a more active role attending forums.  

For many years I gave a presentation at audiophile conventions and professional audio engineering shows I called "The Six Stages of Degradation" or as I sometimes referred to it as "The Six Degrees of Degradation".  Not everyone cares about sound quality, but audiophiles do.

With the viral spiral of the MoFi vinyl mastering situation it became clear how the misunderstandings of how DSD is recorded, mixed, mastered and delivered came to light.   Not only with the audiophiles, but with professional audio engineers.  We've tried talking to people directly, but unfortunately, the misinformation has spread too deep.  So rather than try to talk to each person who spread misinformation, we thought we'd set the record str

Laurie Anderson posted this radio app on her recent creation called the Norton Lectures.  Of course, I tried it!

The term "Audio" is used a lot today in the press.  But if you research, you'll find "spoken word" or podcasts is what all the fuss is about.... it's not about music.  So what's happened to music in a world where streaming dominates?

Happy Father's Day!

Make sure to check the newsletter for a special treat.....

Most of you know I'm a woman.  I say that because a few of you don't know.  Sure I talk about audio, built a recording studio 40 years ago and talk about sports all the time. But, at the end of the day, I'm the daughter to my father who inspired and taught me early on to have an appreciation for audio and sports.

This is a very thorough interview by Greg Simmons of Audio Technology about how we recorded Fiona Joy Hawkins (piano and voice) and Rebecca Daniel (violin and voice) for the album Heavenly Voices.  Thank you to everyone involved!

When we recorded Meghan Andrews' version of Bruce Springsteen's classic song I'm On Fire, Meghan was 9 months pregnant.  It was one take... recorded live with no headphones, no overdubs direct to E.S.E. This is why we created Extended Sound Environment... so that artists like Meghan can truly be appreciated for their extraordinary talent.  Now, we have the youtube video of that very performance.

Some of our audiophile friends have been creating tutorial videos, equipment review videos, videos of measurement test... videos of videos.  One interesting video comes from our friends at PS Audio who are champions of DSD audio.  The video tries to answer the question "Is DSD hard to record?"

I'd like to celebrate Women's History Month by giving a shout out to all the women I have met or will meet that challenge society's norms every day.  In case some of your aren't aware, I am a woman. I realize with a name like "Cookie" it could go either way and I've caught a few people off guard. :)

We get a lot of email from fans and this one was particularly heart warming.  Paul McCandless is one of my oldest friends in the world.  Thirty-five years ago he took a chance to have me produce (and record) his first album on Windham Hill called "Heresay".  The album has so many wonderful stories around it, I won't try to tell all the tales today, but know that they'll be coming.

It's great to be back in the studio working with some of my favorite people who happen to also be amazing musicians.  Last week we had Dayan Kai recording for two days... one of the original Blue Coast Artists who performed on the first Blue Coast Collection.  

Many of you might know the story of how Bing Crosby (the crooner) was involved with the formation of Ampex.  George Peterson offers a really wonderful article filled with details.

I wasn't sure I would write this year's list of predictions... they have a funny way of coming true.  But this year I'm feeling hopeful, determined and more confident about the possibilities. Here are a few predictions I think may be coming for next year.

It was August 2010 when we first met Motoyuki Sugiura - we called him Yuki.  Sony had called a meeting in Denver that included Gus Skinas, Ray Kimber, Chad Kassem and myself to discuss the future of Sony's hifi involvement with the executive AV team from Sony Japan.  We were introduced to the speaker that would become the AR-1 - Sony's amazing top of the line speaker. 

When we started delivering HD downloads back in 2008, we thought it was a good idea to have a different name for our downloads store.  Mainly, because other labels wanted to sell their music in high resolution audio that we didn't record to DSD.  We called the store Downloads NOW!  and we sold singles and albums.  As a reminder, we were the first people to sell 9624 WAV files and later the first to offer DSD downloads in this fashion - direct to you by download.

Thanksgiving is always a time that is special for us.  The beginning of a long holiday season that finds many of us listening to our music and appreciating everyone involved.  From our music lovers to the artists and our crew, I offer the deepest gratitude for taking us around the sun for one more revolution! Thank you for staying in touch and appreciating our music.

Yes, it's just that simple.  If you already own the music, you can still help support our music by viewing our videos at the new YouTube channel - Blue Coast Music.  We're going to be releasing videos in the next year that tell our stories.  From the artists to the fans, from the engineers to the dealers, from industry pros to innovators - we want to immerse ourselves in videos about the people who love music and sound.  Here's the channel for

It's Grammy voting time!  For the next two weeks, those of us with the power to vote on our favorite new music choose a few categories of dozens and pick 5 of our favorite albums fo the hundreds that are submitted in our selected categories.  In two weeks, those choices are added up and the top 5 entries become the nominations for The Grammys.  We voting members then go back and vote again.  In January, the winners are announced on the day of the show.  

Sometimes you have to put pressure on yourself to get something done.  Well, here it is..  The beginning of our new youtube channel "Sleep Relax Dream".... for (you guessed it) Sleeping, relaxing and dreaming.

We haven't posted the music videos yet, but they are in the works.  If you want to be the first to be alerted to the ambient music and nature videos we plan to help guide you to a blissful time of relaxation, sign up here!

Two days ago we received the same letter many others received. It was the news none of us wanted to hear, that Rocky Mountain Audiofest had been canceled. And even worse that Marjorie and Marcie were not going to pursue ever putting it on again.

The grieving has passed and the celebration has come. Dino reunited old bandmates and gave us new friends as we share how he touched our lives.  

We were anxious to get back into the studio and do what we do best: record musicians playing live. Little did we know what would happen when we took on the project with the International Space Orchestra.

Recently we've had a lot of requests from labels wanting to be part of our Blue Coast Music store. Unfortunately, most of the other labels don’t record the music in DSD. While we at Blue Coast Records and our associated studios feel DSD is the best format for recording, it's not always the easiest format for most engineers to access or record to. For that reason we offer mixing and mastering to DSD through our studio.

Last year Apple announced it was going into the HD music area. At the time, we didn't know what that meant. Yesterday they announced that in June 2021, they will release products in lossless audio and Atmos immersive sound at no extra charge. So while this seems interesting to the consumer who's never listened to HD before, is it really going to crush the artists and labels?

Sparked by a post by George Peterson about his Tascam tape recorder, I was thinking about my 1885 Steinway B that gets daily use. Then I looked around at the cast iron pans I use daily that belonged to my grandmother (making them probably 100 years old). The Wusthof knives I bought when I was a teenager were the first purchase I made when I moved out of my parents house for college.

Yes, it's true. If you buy a download from Blue Coast Music you can request a second file of the same music in a smaller format.

An interesting question came to our email the other day, why is Blue Coast Records launching titles that are already out on Blue Coast Music?

A few weeks ago, Jason Weissman told me about his adventures in podcasting and being an audiophile. He asked about an interview with me, but it's really a conversation between two people who love music, live performance, and a tribute to how many terrific musicians are making music.

It's early in the day. It's the inauguration and the change of leadership in the USA. There's a sense of hope and calm.

Enjoy, relax, and spread peace. Tomorrow we've got a lot of work to do.

For now, I hope you enjoy this song sung by Keth Greeninger and City Folk on the album Borderline.

It's a Good Day

https://youtu.be/hPJA5IbEQ98

Cookie

If 2020 was a fiction novel, no one would have believed it possible to have this kind of year. Pandemic aside, we had the worst fire year ever, economic depression, riots, and challenges to our democratic elections. Good-bye 2020! And good riddance!

Blue Coast Records is a label. What does that mean? It means Blue Coast Records owns the masters and creates a brand around the kind of music we choose to record. That music has been guided by my personal taste in what I enjoy hearing. Sometimes the artists overlook their own best feature: the ability to perform fantastically live whether in concert or in the studio. Blue Coast Records chooses to capture those intimate moments.

Introductions on email are always interesting, you never know where they're going to go. I'll do a little research and more often than not, after 40 years in the music business, you find a common thread. After that, I'll write a brief history of “then to now” with that thread of commonality. Today's introduction reminded me of my days of bluegrass, Americana, roots and jam-band music.

Many of you aren't aware that before I started Blue Coast Records, I had a thriving commercial recording studio business. We opened the doors to OTR Studio back in 1982 and for 20 years had the opportunity to record then-emerging artists who would later become key figures in today's music. Yes, I used to record large ensembles with the musicians isolated in their rooms. Yes, I recorded to tape. Yes, some of the music I forgot and some of it is fantastic.

Hi all, David Solomon has been a very good friend and supporter through our many years of HD audio. Now, he's a high end audio champion working for Qobuz, the favorite HD streaming company of many audiophiles.

The interview should be a fun romp through my career in the studio. Fiona Joy Hawkins, Jenna Mammina, and Eamonn Flynn will be the Blue Coast artists joining us for brief cameos.

Last week we filed a trademark for our proprietary systems. So far, things look good. It's an interesting process. You're probably wondering why and what does SEA mean?

Over the years we have developed several proprietary processes either for recording or releasing DSD recordings to the listeners.

My last few "Corners" have gotten much response so I thought I'd fill in the blanks for everyone. First, I wanted to remind you that DSD-Guide is our information website. If you've signed up at bluecoastmusic.com recently, you may not be receiving DSD-Guide. We send out about 2x a month with information on sound, tips on recording, DSD, comparative listening tests, etc. You can sign up here, if you're not already receiving it:

One of the reasons I started Blue Coast Records was to capture the sound of the musicians as they played together learning new songs in the studio. There was a freshness and lightness that was often lost when the 'record' button went on. It was a luxury I got to experience as a recording engineer and producer that I felt was worthy of sharing with the world.